Donald J Trump has accepted an invitation from Enda Kenny to visit our country in his capacity as president of the USA, as opposed to simply being some random boorish clown who happens to own a golf club.

I know. It’s dispiriting, but what are we to do about it?

Actually, the answer is surprisingly simple. We should show Trump’s office the sort of respect he himself doesn’t understand. We should show him the kind of dignity he has no experience of. We should demonstrate to Trump what it means to be a fully-functioning human being.

In other words, we should greet him as we would greet the leader of any foreign country. Needless to mention, that doesn’t include green-clad maidens playing harps at the steps of his plane nor any government minister dancing attendance, as Michael Noonan embarrassingly did long before Trump’s handlers managed to hijack the White House, when he was still just a two-bit hustler working with a big bag of roubles.

No. We should greet the Leader of the Redneck World with a multicultural musical ensemble as he descends from Airforce Wad. We should invite the leaders of all major denominations to greet him. Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Muslim.

We should invite the children of immigrants and of those who fled from oppression to present him with flowers. Syrian children. Libyan children. Afghan children. Iranian children.

Welcome, Mr President.

Of course, if we’re to have any credibility, we’ll have to do something about our appalling Direct Provision system, our unique Irish gulag archipelago capable of swallowing up entire families for decades, depriving them of normal human existence, refusing them even the possibility of preparing a family meal together. And we’ll have to do something about those appointed to hear appeals from the residents of the Direct Provision camps. Some of those highly-respected professionals have never granted one solitary appeal, despite being paid large amounts of money to sit in judgement over desperate people. What are the chances that not even one application has any merit?

Well, them’s the breaks, as they say. Tough.

But never mind any of that. This is modern Ireland and nothing like the old days, when remote authoritarians sat in judgement over unmarried mothers and jailed children convicted of being orphans. Ignoring the plight of children confined to Direct Provision camps is nothing like ignoring the children locked up in industrial schools or the women locked up in Magdalene Laundries. These days, we lock them all up together and eventually, when the children become thoroughly Irish, become fluent Irish speakers in school, with no connection whatever to their parents’ home place, we send the whole lot of them back to Africa.

We’re good like that in this land of missionaries. We’re really great.

Of course, Enda made a big pitch to the Oompaloompa-in-Chief about Irish illegals in the USA. And yes, they are illegal, not undocumented. And yes, it would be great if they could all get green cards. And yes, I’m all in favour of it.

But why do we think there’s something special about us as Irish? Why do we always reach for the fool’s pardon? Why do we participate in this annual festival of paddywhackery with the likes of Paul Ryan slurping a badly-poured Guinness and Trump slurring his way through a Nigerian poem, thinking it’s an Irish proverb?

Why do we acquiesce with such bullshit instead of having some dignity? Why do we roll over and let our bellies be tickled?

The latest we hear is that Trump is going to base his European headquarters in Ireland and some of us wonder what it all means.

After all, Trump is the President of the USA. He has one HQ and that’s in Washington. The USA does not have a European headquarters and yet the Irish papers slavishly reported this nonsense as fact.

What’s the alternative? Simple: Trump, in violation of US statute, continues to operate independent business interests across the globe and proposes to set up an illegal offshore operation here in Ireland to evade Federal law.

Isn’t that what it amounts to? Will we facilitate Trump to engage in activity that would be illegal in the USA?

Is that in our long-term interests?

Never mind growing a pair. Isn’t about time we grew a brain and realised that this man is determined to destroy the European Union if he can? Isn’t it about time we realised where our long-term interests lie and isn’t it about time we stopped sending our Prime Minister to the White House for Saint Patrick’s Day like some performing monkey for the enjoyment of Irish-Americans who are less Irish than my cat?

The cheek of you Bock calling the USA a “Redneck World”. Speak for yourself their your views not the whole of Ireland. I am very happy with Trump and what he’s doing and its not dispiriting that he’s coming to visit Ireland we should welcome him like we did Google, Intel, Apple etc., who have created lots of employment in this country. Your a sad person and to think you get paid to wrote this one minded trash. God help Ireland if this is the new way of thinking.

Their your views Bock not the views of the whole of Ireland, hard to believe you get paid to wrote this one minded trash. The cheek of you calling the USA a Redneck World, guess you never lived there. Guess everybody in Facebook, Google, Intel, Apple are all rednecks then who created a lot of employment in this country. God help modern Ireland. I am happy with Trump and what he’s doing.

Get a grip Hugo Northside.Bock was writing about Trump not Americans in general.ME most of the rest of the world write similar things about Trump.It’s what most sane think about Trump,whether you like to believe it or not.